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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516174">Causality</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora'>yoshizora</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crimson Flower Route, F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:22:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,030</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You couldn’t even give me the satisfaction of dying by my hand alone.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Catherine/Shamir Nevrand, Shamir Nevrand &amp; Edelgard von Hresvelg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Causality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>crimson flower cathmir angst except i ended up having less of a focus on cathmir as i originally intended whoops!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>During one of her nightly rounds, Shamir comes upon the leader of the Black Eagles sitting on a bench and gazing up at the moon.</p><p>“It’s past curfew,” she says, and Edelgard startles like an animal that’d felt the whizz of an arrow across its fur. But she doesn’t bolt, merely freezes, tense and now coiled like a snake.</p><p>Her eyes betray her body language, momentary fear and confusion meeting Shamir’s gaze.</p><p>“…I couldn’t sleep,” Edelgard says with some uncertainty, understandably wary. For all the time Shamir had been spending with her class at the behest of the professor herself, she’d yet to truly fit in with the students. How could she, as a Knight of Seiros? As a Knight of Seiros, once mercenary, who even fought in the Dagda and Brigid War, that barrier between her and the heiress to the Empire, in particular, would be insurmountable.</p><p>Shamir stares down at her for a moment, then takes a seat beside her. Edelgard, now unsure what to say, decides to stare at a tree across the courtyard instead of at the moon now.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it. Students sneak out past bedtime all the time. I just didn’t expect to see the Adrestian princess herself to be among them.”</p><p>Is… Shamir trying to be friendly? But she’s hardly smiling. Edelgard has half a mind to simply bid her goodnight and return to her dorm room, but when she closes her eyes all she can see is—</p><p>She involuntarily shudders, wrapping her coat more tightly around herself.</p><p>“May I ask you something, Shamir?” Edelgard hears herself asking, extremities numb but her heart threatening to bash its way out of her ribcage. Of all the people at this academy, Shamir should be one of her worst enemies. Shamir serves the church. Shamir should hate the Empire for what they did to Dagda. Shamir kills on order without hesitation, all for the archbishop.</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>Shamir never looks at Edelgard with disdain or distrust, in spite of it all.</p><p>“What do you suppose defines value in a person? Wealth? Social standing? The Crest they bear?” Edelgard digs her nails into her arms, disgust and grief still coursing through her from the nightmares.</p><p>“None of those,” Shamir answers without hesitation.</p><p>“What, then?”</p><p>“How far a person is willing to go to fight for those they believe in…” she trails off, eyes turning to Edelgard.</p><p>“And who do you believe in, if you don’t mind me asking?”</p><p>Shamir stands up, offering a hand to help Edelgard stand as well. “No one in particular. Come on, I’ll escort you back to your room.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The heat is unbearable. Her vision is beginning to darken in spots from staring at the flames for too long, and sweat pours down her temples and mats her hair down to her forehead. Catherine tries not to inhale too deeply, lest the smoke induce a violent coughing fit.</p><p>Citizens wail and scream, the unfortunate ones who hadn’t been able to get out of the city before the Imperial Army had slain their king and marched forth. Catherine offers no apologies as she brushes her torch across houses and trees and bushes and carefully tended gardens, and she offers no respite to the soldiers beneath her command who have been ordered to do the same.</p><p>She watches Firdhiad burn around her, feeling nothing.</p><p>Lady Rhea— no, Lady Seiros lets out a terrible roar that sweeps across the flames that consume the capital, and Catherine comes to a standstill. She allows her torch to slip from her grasp and hit ashy cobblestones.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They’ve set up a temporary base in an abandoned tower once occupied by bandits. All things considered, despite the ensuing chaos following the declaration of war, it wasn’t terribly difficult to find the Black Eagles and those who had absconded with them. Difficult for anyone else, perhaps, but Shamir always did have strong instincts and a knack for picking up the slightest trails.</p><p>The Emperor herself arrives to greet her outside before she can enter, Hubert following closely at her side.</p><p>“I was beginning to have my doubts about whether or not you would join us,” Edelgard says, extending a hand.</p><p>“Can this one be trusted, Lady Edelgard?” Hubert asks, and they all know it’s a rhetorical question. Shamir can’t begrudge him for his caution. He has every reason to be wary, considering her previous alliance.</p><p>“It's alright, Hubert. You’ve always been a mercenary through and through. Am I not wrong?” Edelgard’s eyes search Shamir’s, piercing and strong, that offer still held out. So Shamir takes her hand, grip firm, and shakes it. “But you must understand, I’m not paying you just to betray the church.”</p><p>Hubert opens his mouth. “I was not aware of <em>a transaction</em>—“</p><p>“Keep your money. Consider my allegiance to be… pro bono.” Shamir says, never looking away from Edelgard.</p><p>She hated them, at first. Both of them must surely be aware of that. Her loyalty can’t be bought so easily, either.</p><p>“You will fight with us, then?”</p><p>Shamir thinks back to those years before Rhea, crawling through mud and hiding in trees and vowing never to declare loyalty again after she’d buried the body of her previous partner. She thinks of the hunger and pain, and of rain in which there was no shelter. She thinks of the days spent as a Knight in comparable luxury, idly fishing and petting cats and fighting back to back with Catherine.</p><p>This is her decision alone. Catherine had no say in it.</p><p>Catherine would understand, she hopes.</p><p>“Yeah,” Shamir says, and Edelgard gestures for her to follow them inside.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It feels like hours before Catherine is able to pause and <em>breathe</em>, though she ends up wheezing and spitting and coughing for her efforts. Every muscle in her body screams. She can hardly see what’s directly in front of her. Blood mingles with her sweat— is it her own blood, or someone else’s? The battalion she had been leading had dispersed a while ago amidst the raging battles, and Catherine idly wonders if they had fallen or if they’d simply retreated to safety.</p><p>Another one of the Immaculate One’s roars ripples through the air. Catherine tilts her face up to the sky, breathing hard and trying to blink away all the sweat and blood that blinds her.</p><p><em>Keep it together</em>, she tells herself. <em>Just a little longer</em>.</p><p>And then…</p><p>And then what?</p><p>She stumbles over bodies and past wounded pegasi and wyvern that had been shot out of the air. A horse without a rider runs past her, whinnying. This area used to be a neighborhood. Now it’s all ablaze and littered with fallen soldiers, indistinguishable between those of the church and the Imperial Army.</p><p>There is no shock or wonder when she finds Shamir sitting slumped against a wall that hadn’t been knocked down, away from the path that others would be taking to get to the plaza where Seiros awaits.</p><p>“Hello, Catherine,” Shamir says, as casual as a sunny day by the fishing pond. “I always knew this day would come.”</p><p>Catherine wipes at her face with the back of her hand.</p><p>“What a coincidence. So did I.”</p><p>She’s bleeding. One arm is loosely draped over herself, and Catherine can see the blood soaking into her clothes and staining pale skin.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>She’s <em>dying.</em></p><p>Catherine staggers over, Thunderbrand raised.</p><p>Shamir closes her eyes.</p><p>“… You didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye.”</p><p>When she reluctantly opens her eyes to look up, she can’t tell if it’s sweat or tears that run down Catherine’s face. She had lowered Thunderbrand, her grip loosening until the sword clatters to the ground, and Catherine lowers herself to sit beside Shamir. Her breath is shaky. What a mess.</p><p>“It wouldn’t have been easy,” Shamir says.</p><p>“Bastard.”</p><p>She’s tired. They’re both tired. Catherine can’t even muster the energy to strangle her, which she’d thought of during nights when sleep wouldn’t come easy. Those were frequent fantasies.</p><p>For a while, they sit in silence, Shamir’s breathing growing weaker by the minute and Catherine busy wiping the tears and sweat that won’t seem to stop. The city is still burning, and people are dying. Catherine knows— she knows she’s partly to blame, she knows, she hates it, she’s responsible for letting all this happen because… because…</p><p>“We’re more similar than you’d think, you and I,” Shamir says, so quietly that Catherine has to hold her breath just so her own haggard crying won’t drown out her words. “But… we just ended up believing in different people.”</p><p>“I don’t— I don’t want to die—“ Catherine feels it all breaking down, and now she can’t even contain herself. “I can’t die here—“</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> the one dying.”</p><p>“Not for Rhea— not for her.” She’s too tired to feel, or think. Everything just hurts, and everything is just numb. “I did this for Lady Rhea, not for Seiros!”</p><p>“Does telling yourself that make you feel better?”</p><p>“I’ll kill you, Shamir,” Catherine says through grit teeth, turning to kneel, facing her, trembling hands reaching for her neck. “I swear I’ll kill you.”</p><p>“That’s what I was afraid of,” Shamir says, her smile weak and pale. She doesn’t even stop Catherine from taking ahold of her throat, though her fingers don't even squeeze hard enough for her to register. She can’t tell if Catherine is deliberately holding back, or if her hands are just shaking too badly. “I… truly, truly wish things didn’t turn out this way between us, Catherine.”</p><p>“You betrayed me!”</p><p>“I guess I did,” Shamir says, her gaze falling past Catherine, unfocused.</p><p>“How could you, Shamir?!”</p><p>Her eyes are beginning to glaze over. Shamir lifts a hand, the one that’d been partially hiding the gaping wound across her stomach, and rests it on Catherine’s forearm. “How far a person is willing to go to fight for those they believe in…”</p><p>Her hand falls, smearing blood. Catherine stays there for what feels like an eternity, hands still wrapped around Shamir’s neck even when her head droops down and her eyes gently close.</p><p>“You couldn’t even give me the satisfaction of dying by my hand alone.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Shamir?”</p><p>It’s the eve before they advance toward the Tailtean Plains, and then Firdhiad itself. There’s always some air of anticipation and anxiety before a battle, but tonight the air feels <em>electric.</em> Shamir, however, seems more or less unbothered, loitering around the entrance hall, but Edelgard can see the slight tension in her shoulders and back.</p><p>“Did you need something, Edelgard?”</p><p>“No. I was just checking up on everyone, before we march out tomorrow.” Edelgard studies her for a moment, searching for something that she can’t pinpoint. “How are you feeling?”</p><p>“To be honest…” Shamir hesitates. “There’s someone I’m concerned about encountering.”</p><p>“Your old partner, I assume. I recall you two were particularly close.”</p><p>“Yeah. I can see her coming to slaughter me, driven by her mixed emotions of love and hate.”</p><p>“I see. Then do you have any regrets, leaving the knights?”</p><p>"None come to mind. I made that decision myself."</p><p>Edelgard’s gaze is always piercing, enough to intimidate battle-hardened men, but Shamir remembers the girl who couldn’t sleep because of nightmares and snuck out past curfew to gaze at the moon. A lot’s changed since then. Perhaps her answer had changed, as well.</p><p>“The value of a person isn’t determined by whether they’re a noble or if they bear a Crest,” Shamir says. “You asked me about that a long time ago.”</p><p>Edelgard raises a brow. “I’m surprised you remember that conversation. I can hardly remember it myself.”</p><p>“But their worth isn’t measured by how far they’re willing to go for those they believe in, either.” Shamir thinks of Catherine, who she’d seen staunchly standing beside the raging dragon that threatened to raze the fields around the monastery. She… wishes it didn’t have to turn out like that. She wishes she could have had one last conversation with Catherine, at the very least.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“I won’t die for you, Edelgard,” Shamir says. “I’ll gladly fight for your cause, but I won’t die for your sake.”</p><p>Edelgard nods, understanding. “You truly are an extraordinary person, Shamir.”</p>
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